


Dead or Alive?

by Miker



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Burns, Fire, Happy Ending, M/M, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:40:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29199258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miker/pseuds/Miker
Summary: Buck's apartment building was set ablaze. What happened next caught Eddie off guard.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 192
Collections: Buddie Discord Secret Elf 2020





	Dead or Alive?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Afstory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Afstory/gifts).



> For Austhemonkie >< You asked for angst with happy ending, hope you like it >

26th October 6:17pm  
“9-1-1 what is your emergency?” Maddie picked up her first call for the day.

“Holy mother of god! I’m on the 10th floor and … and I heard this explosion… like below me. At first I thought it was like an earthquake or some shit, but then smoke start seeping in from my front door and I was like what the fuck dude. And And....” A panicked voice came screaming over the phone. 

“Sir? Sir? You have to stay calm. What’s your name?” Maddie interrupted him as she tried to calm the man on the other side of the phone.

“Jackie Kennedy, J-a-c-k-i-e K-e-n-n-e-d-y”

“Hey Jackie I’m Maddie, can you take a few deep breaths for me? In, out, in, out… ”

Jackie exhaled and inhaled as he promptly followed her instructions.

“I literally just came back from work exhausted and shit and was chillin in bed watching some Netflix when there’s this explosion from down below. And I kid you not when I tell you that i thought there’s a fucking earthquake ya know?!? Like gurl! The whole mother fucking building shoooked!”

“Okay sir, help is on the way, hang on tight.”

“Holy crap, there’s smoke coming in now. Holy shit I’m gonna die, I'm gonna freaking die. Can’t I catch a freaking break?!? First it’s that Rebecca bitch from work trynna back stab me and now I'm stuck in an inferno building?!?”

“Sir, calm down, sit tight. Do not leave, okay? We’re on the way.”

“Okay, but please hurry.”

“Alright Jackie please keep some windows open if you can get them open up and get wet some cloth and seal off the gaps between the front door and sit tight. It’s going to be a while cause there’s a fire going on downstairs.”

“I can’t open these crusty ass windows, unless I break them. I swear to god Maddie, if I survive this, management’s gonna feel my wrath.”

“And they will, just sit tight and help is on its way.”

“Okay, please hurry though. The smoke is making it hard to breathe and it’s hot as hell.”

“Okay dear, I’m so sorry, hold on for a sec, stay calm with me. Listen, i’m going to check where the LAFD is at the moment, hold on a second please...”

“I’m going to die...”

“You gotta think positive-”

“I'm going to die. I’m going to burn to death, which is literally the worst way to go.”

“You’re doing a good job Jackie, you’re doing a fantastic job. Hang in there for a few more minutes, the LAFD is just round the corner.”

“Maddie, can you stay on the phone with me? I’m scared. I… I… you don’t have to talk, I just don’t want to be alone right now.”

“Yeah, I’m going to stay with you.”

“Thank you”

“How’s the weather?”

“Err… What?”

“How’s the weather? Just tryna distract myself from the fact that I'm in a burning inferno and most likely going to die either from the fire or from a lack of oxygen… And to keep things straight, burning to death is at the bottom of my, air quote, ‘ways to die’ list. I always picture myself leaving this world in the most epic way possible, like being recruited as an undercover agent and sacrificing myself to protect a kid in an epic gun fight or some shit equivalent to that… ”

“Sorry to interrupt but the lieutenant notified me that firefighters had reached the 10th floor you should be able to hear them by now.“

“I think I can hear them Maddie! I can hear footsteps. Heeelp! Heeeelp! I’m here.”

Maddie could hear rustling over the phone and mumbles that resemble something like ‘thank god’ and ‘thank you.’

“Thank you for staying Maddie, may god bless your soul.” Jackie cried over the phone before quickly hanging up.

Maddie set down her headpiece and let out a sigh of relief before she spun around to face head on with the television mounted on the wall behind her. Though she was relieved that Jackie was now in safe hands, but worry was still written all over her face. Watching the burning apartment building on the breaking news segment, listening to the news anchor’s commentary on the severity of the fire and how fast the fire had spread alongside with her previous call with Jackie, did not ease her anxiety. Maddie could only pray that Buck was working and is nowhere near his now burning apartment.   
————  
26th October 4:30am  
Rolling out of bed, Eddie rubbed the nape of his neck to loosen up some of the built up tension. The exhaustion from the previous day slowly crept back in as Eddie grabbed the phone by the bedside table to check the time. The blinding white light emitting from the rectangular device forced him to squint his eyes and turn the phone the other way. A few moments went by allowing his eyes to slowly adapt to the artificial lighting. Eddie turned his focus back towards the digits displayed on his phone. Though he was used to waking up before his alarm rang, a habit he retained from his training back when he served in the Army, he never once wake up two hours before his usual routine. So it took him by surprised when he found himself awake at four thirty in the morning. 

Knowing the fact that the next day was going to be another extra long shift and he had a rather rough night the day prior with a few back to back calls. Eddie tried to go back to sleep to catch another hours of close eyes before he had to wake up and prepare for work. However, despite being physically tired and his brain screaming at him to go back to sleep, his mind seemed to be going a thousand miles an hour and this eerie feeling that something was not right was sitting on his chest. The feeling tethered him to reality preventing him from drifting back to dreamland. He tried taking deep breaths, regulating his breathing, forcing his mind to space out and shake the feeling off so he could catch some ‘Zs’ before the day begin. But tough luck, sleep never came and the sense of eerie disconcerting feeling grew and intensified as time slipped by. 

As darkness slowly faded out and the sky was slowly painted a tinge of orange with a hint of purple diffuse through the skyline. Eddie finally gave up on any more efforts to sleep and started his morning routine. Not once since he woke up in the middle of the night did that unsettling feeling that Eddie felt had dissipated. This was especially when he tried to leave his house for work. His whole body shivered and his skin itched as if a swarm of ants were underneath it. His intuition screamed at him to skip work and stay at home, refusing to let him leave the house. 

Call him psychic or not, but these gut feelings are not exactly uncommon amongst the Diaz family. His abuela for instance, had a rather much stronger sixth sense than him. Whenever something disastrous was about to happen she always gets these strong tingly feelings that warn her to be extra cautious for the day. But Eddie was never one to believe in supernatural elements or psychic abilities, he’s always skeptical about such claims and chalked them up as mere coincidences.  
\---------  
Besides the few odd medical emergency calls that Hen and Chimney could handle by themselves, it seemed as though the 118’s service was not needed by the city for the day. This gave the 118 time to catch up on some overdue maintenance of the station and equipment gear before the next disaster strikes. 

This was an all hands on deck situation, other than Buck who was on sick leave everyone was down in keeping the station at its tip top condition. While Hen and Chimney were taking stock of medical supplies and keeping tabs on the supplies that needed to be disposed or replenished, Eddie was busy scrubbing down the fire engine and Bobby was upstairs making curry for that night’s dinner. They would hands down take cleaning and inventory everyday over back to back rescues any day. The slow day was honestly a blessing to the 118 as the past few days of rescues had taken a toll on them, allowing them to have some well deserved ‘rest.’

The constant working helped ease off the uneasy feeling that Eddie felt that morning temporarily, and focusing on his cleaning duties helped take his mind off it. Though there were moments throughout the day where this eeriness came creeping back from time to time, Eddie was distracted enough to keep his head clear and focus on the task at hand. When he was about to wrap things up for the day and go upstairs to have his well deserved dinner he received a call from Buck. Picking it up without a second thought, his face lit up and all signs of exhaustion vanished as though the past 5 hours of laborious cleaning was non-existent. 

“Hey Babe, feeling better?” Eddie said into the phone while climbing up the stairs.

“-dd-e! -elp! I th-k …. B-mb… xpl-s-on…” Buck’s voice was garbled over the phone breaking up here and there. 

“What? Hey Buck you’re breaking up! Hello?!?” Eddie’s beginning to get worried as he discerned some of Buck’s garbled gibberish to be words of distress.

“-ire, -elp…” Buck tried to emphasize some keywords to deliver the message in a short and precise manner before the line went dead. 

The monotonous beeping sound coming through the phone sent chills down Eddie’s spine, when the uncanny feeling from this morning came back with a vengeance as he now felt that sensation throughout his whole body. His body felt like nothing belonged there and every bone, nerve and muscle felt out of place, it was worse than this morning, cause he knew for a matter of fact that something did happen. Something happened… Something happened to Buck… the person that he loved and cherished. The perpetual feeling that his heart was both beating out of his chest and felt as though a clamp was gripping on it restricting its movement was suffocating. Leaving him breathless, like when he was on one of his workouts. Each breath he inhales burns as he desperately tries to draw in more and more air to keep himself functional. His muscles tensed and ached at the thought that something happening to buck leave him alone and stranded alone in this world. He’s panicking… He’s helpless...He’s spiralling… 

Eddie was transfixed midway up the stairs, his still holding the phone against his ear, staring blankly ahead devoid of any signs of emotion. 

The siren blared across the station and grounded Eddie back to reality. Eddie compartmentalised his emotions and blocked it off. He needed to focus on the task at hand, people’s lives were in his hands. He could not let his own personal emotions compromise people’s chances of survival. He ran to the truck repeating himself that ‘Buck is fine, he can handle himself’ like a mantra, ready for the late night rescue.

Despite blocking off his worry for Buck, Eddie was still unable to focus on what Bobby had to say on the way to the site. His mind was a mess, a battle between worrying Buck and being an emotional wreck or being the calm fearless firefighter he needs to be right now commenced in his brain. 

As they drove closer to their destination, Eddie picked up the familiarity of the passing scenery. The oddly familiar Starbucks similar to the one next to Buck’s apartment; the peculiarly familiar 99 cent store with the same flickering ‘9’ on its LED board as the one near Buck’s place. Then the blazing building on the next street caught Eddie’s eyes and his eyes went wide. The building... That’s where Buck’s apartment is located… the phone call he had minutes before this call and the burning apartment building. Eddie pieced the few information and finally connected the dots, Buck was in that building. Not as a firefighter with the proper protective equipment but as a mere civilian with zero help and a bunch of panicking residents. Despite Buck being a well experienced firefighter, without proper gear and help it is hard to say if he’s able to come out alive by the looks of the flame let alone evacuating hundreds of civilians.

Eddie finally peeled his eyes away from the window and looked back at the team. They’re all looking at him with worry in their eyes. 

“Eddie, you can skip this one alright?” Hen said gently.

“Yeah. We’ve got this, Buck’s gonna be alright.” Chimney chimed in.

Eddie simply nodded in acknowledgement and dipped his head into his head as he let the few traitorous tears flow down his cheeks. 

\----------  
It’s been a few hours of fire fighting and there are signs of the fire slowly dying. There are no longer fires spilling out the window accompanied by the occasional explanation that shook the earth with great intensity. All was left now was rubbles of glowing embers still illuminating the dark night and the occasional stretcher with burn patients out of the building. 

As the night went by, there were no signs of Buck. He was nowhere to be found, no sign of him near the triage section nor registered in any hospital. This suggests that Buck is still somewhere inside that burning pile of ash. The thought of Buck being under that pile of rubble, lying there unconscious breaks Eddie’s heart. Eddie couldn’t begin to imagine what life would be like without Buck, he couldn't go back to a world without him in it. Even the thought of this is tearing him from the inside out, without Buck Eddie would be reduced to a soulless walking bag of flesh. 

At the corner of Eddie’s eyes he saw another stretcher being carried out. The white sheets covering over the body was by itself an unpleasant sight, but unveiling the sheets revealed a charred victim which was even more heart wrenching to witness. His whole face was burnt off, the victim’s face was unrecognisable, his whole body from head to toe was charred. Eddie stepped closer to inspect the victim, scanning for any visible similarity and hoping and praying that the person in front of him right now is not one Evan Buckley. Upon inspecting the victim, he realised that the victim’s hand was grasping tightly onto something. Prying it off gently from his hands, he took the leather object and investigated further.

The sides of the leather object were severely burnt, but the interior and the middle section were still intact. The victim must have clutched onto it and prevented the majority of the object to be burnt to a crisp. Flipping open the object, Eddie found out it was a wallet with numerous cards inside. Taking out the driver license, a picture of Buck stared right back at him. The name ‘Evan Buckley’ printed in big boxy letters was displayed on the card. Tears began to pool and roll down his cheeks, as he clutched onto Buck’s wallet like it was his lifeline. 

Suddenly, he reminded himself of TedTalk he watched on Youtube yesterday. It was some kind of physics phenomenon.   
He learned about this guy called Schrodinger who put a cat in a box-   
Well. Not really.   
But he thought about it.  
And see.  
The thing was that while the cat was in the box  
It was both alive and dead  
Until someone bothers to open the box  
So Eddie thought to himself that tonight he’ll keep Buck safe  
In a little box in his head  
Alive and dead  
Until he have to open it.

Silently Eddie followed the paramedics to the ambulance with Buck lying safe and peacefully inside the black plastic bag, neither dead nor alive, still being kept in that little box in his head.

In the ambulance, Eddie didn’t blink until his eyes stung hot. When he closed them he felt a watery sensation flow and tasted salt on his lips. He felt everything crashed down on him and Eddie wondered if suffocating feeling would ever end because it seemed to keep dragging him down drowning and swallowing him whole. It certainly made him cry a lot more, which Eddie positively hated. 

“Dammit.” His voice shook so he gave up on talking to concentrate on breathing. Eddie didn’t bother stopping the tears. There wasn’t a point. Or better still, they were meant to be shed. His heart aches and clenches at the idea that Buck, his Buck, is dead and alive in an non-existent box. He wants him alive, standing next to him with that goofy smile of his, he just wants him to be a hundred percent alive, not possibly alive according to some dead scientist’s experiment.

Time slipped without his awareness. How long he stayed in the ambulance, hand clamping down on the metal bar of the gurney, Eddie neither knew nor cared. He vaguely heard the paramedics mentioning something about arriving and letting go, heard the doors open then close. It would have been easy to stay where he was and just let the world pass him, but Eddie knew that was impossible. So he pulled away and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. Crying always left him a bit of a soggy mess.

Begrudgingly, he blindly followed the paramedics into the emergency room. As they traverse through the room to the elevator, through blurred vision Eddie noticed a familiar mop of blonde hair. That particular shade of dirty blonde strikes way too close to home. Oddly it reminded him of home, reminded him of a certain someone that would make him breakfast in bed, reminded him of… Buck. Again, he rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, clearing his vision once more. 

Once his vision cleared Eddie zoned in on the person lying in bed, still unconscious from whatever happened to him. The second he laid eyes on that man, fresh tears began trickling down his cheeks. The man have a skull tattoo on his right biceps identical to a special someone but most importantly the man have a distinctive birthmark above his left eye that hell recognise from a mile away.

Without himself noticing Eddie found himself pulling Buck into a protective embrace and given the moment, he wilted into Buck’s chest. Feeling Buck’s chest rising and falling and his heart beating in steady beat, Eddie tighten his embrace as if Buck would run away and disappear forever if he don’t. He only backed up and remove himself from the Buck when he heard a low groan coming from beneath him.

“E- Eddie?” Buck managed to rasp out his name. “Where… where am I? And what are you doing?”

Eddie chuckled and laugh as another round of tears erupted and gravitate towards the ground. Relief washed over him as he held Buck closer to his chest and took a minute to let reality sink in. Buck is alive he repeated to himself like a mantra. Buck is alive.

Eddie never got to open the box as it was opened for him, Buck is alive. Not in some quantum theory way but alive in the way where his body was warm to the touch, alive in the sense where the heart monitor was beeping rhythmically, alive in the way where Buck is able to look him in the eye and smile back at him. His Buck is here… and alive.


End file.
